Bomb plot, sting upset Portland

by Nigel Duara - Nov. 30, 2010 12:00 AMAssociated Press

PORTLAND, Ore. - Some residents of this famously liberal city are unnerved, not only by a plot to bomb an annual Christmas-tree-lighting ceremony last week but also by federal officials' tactics in the case.

They questioned whether federal agents crossed the line by training Somali-American Mohamed O. Mohamud, 19, to detonate a bomb, giving him $3,000 cash to rent an apartment and providing him with a fake device.

The FBI affidavit "was a picture painted to make the suspect sound like a dangerous terrorist," said Rich Burroughs, a Portland photographer.

"I don't think it's clear at all that this person would have ever had access to even a fake bomb if not for the FBI," Burroughs added.

Mohamud was indicted Monday on a federal charge of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. He was arrested Friday evening near the crowded Pioneer Courthouse.

Mohamud's defense lawyer said at a court hearing Monday that agents groomed his client and timed his arrest for publicity's sake.

Public defender Stephen Sady focused on the FBI's failed attempt to record a first conversation between Mohamud and an FBI undercover operative. "In the cases involving potential entrapment, it's the initial meeting that matters," Sady said.

Key to the defense is showing the defendant wasn't predisposed to act criminally before the government got involved.

Sady asked a judge to order the government to preserve whatever devices, storage media or locations might have been used for a July 30 meeting at a downtown Portland hotel.

Judge John Acosta granted the request.

At the meeting, an FBI affidavit said, Mohamud talked of "putting stuff in a car, parking it by a target and detonating it."

Although the undercover agent was equipped with audio-recording equipment, it didn't work, for reasons the affidavit left unexplained.